lotrtheawakeningfandomcom-20200213-history
Elfrod
Efrod was born to his widowed mother on their quaint little house in the hills of Dale. His father died by when he attempted to run from thieves. As he was fleeing from them, he tripped, fell off a bridge and drowned in the river. He never was a good swimmer. Around a year after his birth, Elfrod was still unnamed, so his mother took him to an elven settlement and have their lord name him. She thought elven names sounded interesting, but couldn’t think of any. As his mother and lord were discussing names, Elfrod noticed a roaring fire in the fireplace. Half poking out of the fire was a metallic rod used to stoke the fire. Because the curious child he was, Elfrod crawled over to examine the rod. When he pulled the rod out, the half that was in the fire was glowing red hot. He then took the rod and crawled over to where the elven lord was sitting, and whacked him in the leg. The heat from the rod engulfed the lord's cloak in flames. The lord than screamed in terror and ran into a nearby lake in panic. After the fire was doused, the lord banished Elfrod and his mother from every coming into their village again. He also enchanted a curse upon the rod that Elfrod was holding so that it burned forever and he had to carry it for as long as he lived. Thus granting his name, Elfrod. Around a year later, his mother grew an exponential love for sheep, so she decided to start a sheep farm. They lived fairly normal lives for a while. When Elfrod became the age of 14, his mother went out to feed the sheep one morning as usual, but one of the sheep grew rabid. When his mother entered the pen, the rabid sheep pounced on her and ripped her to shreds and consumed her, bones and all. Elfrod, absolutely mortified by this, went on an angered rampage and slaughtered every single sheep in the pen. He furiously hacked away at the sheep with his cursed rod, combusting every single one. Once the dust settled, he vowed to kill every single sheep he was to come across in his mother’s name. Ever since then, whenever Elfrod was bored, he would practice his combat skills with his cursed rod. During the rampage, he realized it makes for quite a good weapon. He became quite fluent in this new-found form of combat. By the time Elfrod was 19, he had run out of his reserve money that used to be his mother’s. He wasn’t too fond of working, so Elfrod sold his cottage and used the money to try and gamble his way through life. About a month later, he was broke, so he decided it was time to actually take up a profession. He tried being a farmer’s hand, but he hated this line of work. He tried being a courier, but he very often got jumped and just willingly handed over the parcels, so he was fired. He tried pretty much every job available in Dale, with no success. Elfrod then resorted to begging on the streets. In a couple of days, he managed to obtain a couple of scraps and a few pieces of coin, which he used to buy more scraps. He was starving. Then, a stranger came by and, instead of giving him coin or food, he gave Elfrod a lute and taught him how to play it. Elfrod became quite decent at playing, which nearly doubled his income. A couple of days later, an edgy looking guy came by Elfrod. He looked down at Elfrod and said nothing. Elfrod looked back up at him. They stared at each other for about five minutes. The guy finally introduced himself as Kinith the Monster Hunter. He told Elfrod he was on his way to form a new town and asked him if he wanted to join. Before he could even finish, Elfrod was on his feet and ready to go. They traveled together to find suitable land for their new town. On the way, they met a maiden whose name was Reya, who excelled in making alcohol. She decided to join them on their quest for new lands. The three of them became the best friends. Elfrod decided that once they found suitable land, he would build his own tavern. He made a business deal with Reya in which she would brew the alcohol and he would sell it in his tavern. Elfrod finally found his passion. Once they found a decent place, Elfrod immediately began working on his tavern, while Kinith began building a farm. They founded their new town near the border of Mirkwood. They were close enough so that Kinith could easily go out and hunt, but just far enough so the spiders wouldn’t bother them. They named their new town Dirthavaren, meaning “The Promise”. Pretty soon, Elfrod had his tavern, The TopKeg Tavern, up and running. He had a fair amount of business, but people adored the alcohol that Reya had brewed. Elfrod was loving his newfound purpose. Their lives went on as usual for quite a while. A few months went by without a hinge, but all was not well elsewhere. Tension was growing between Dale and The Gundabad and eventually the two factions broke out in war. Elfrod and Kinith fought in a couple of battles, but Reya was so sick and tired of the war, she left their town to live on her own. Kinith soon after realized he was bored with just farming and decided to leave as well, leaving Elfrod completely alone. Elfrod was alright with being alone for a little while, but eventually he grew incredibly lonely. He even considered suicide. His personality completely turned around. He wasn’t the fun-loving sarcastic idiot he used to be. As each day passed by he grew more and more depressed. Eventually, he grew so tired of being alone, he decided to close down his tavern and wander alone. Elfrod followed the river going south for a few weeks and soon arrived to a small port town. He snuck onto a cargo ship headed to Rhûn and stowed away. The ship traveled about a week until the crew finally found Elfrod. They told him that they would drop him off in the nearest port with no penalty if he were to work as a crewmember. Elfrod, with absolutely no experience with any kind of boat, said yes. Luckily, they only assigned him as a swabbie, so no experience was needed. Around a week later they reached the mouth of a river that flows from the Sea of Rhûn to the Ash Mountains. There was a port town where Elfrod was dropped off. He lived and begged in the streets of that town for a couple of weeks. He got a bit of déjà vu. One morning, he was walking down the streets like normal when he saw a little girl crying. Elfrod went to her and asked what was wrong. She said that both her parents were killed when their home was robbed and that she was starving. Elfrod couldn’t help but empathize for her. He went to a nearby fruit vender and asked for an apple. Unfortunately, Elfrod didn’t have enough coin, so he just stole the apple. He ran about 10 feet until the vendor yelled “Theif!” and the guards were on his tail. He ran passed the little girl and tossed her the apple as he sped by. Luckily the guards didn’t catch this and kept running after Elfrod. As he was running, he noticed off to the side a stack of barrels wrapped together by a rope mesh. With a swift flick of arm, Elfrod’s cursed rod emerged out of his sleeve into his hand. As he was running by the barrels, he swung the rod at the mesh net, causing it to burn and the barrels to fall on top of the pursuing guards. Elfrod quickly clambered up a building onto a balcony and looked below to see the guards struggling to recover. He couldn’t help but chuckle a bit. He turned around and immediately was eye to eye with a woman in silk robes and a very disgruntled look on her face. He only caught a glimpse of her until she slapped him in the face, knocking him out cold. Elfrod slowly came to in a small black metal room with just a bit of hay for bedding and a singular door with a small barred window. He then realized the room was bobbing. He shot up to the door and saw a road moving forward. He was in a prison carriage. He yelled for help but his only response was a bang on the door that echoed throughout the cage. Elfrod looked out the window to the left and noticed a guard leaning on a rail for support. Elfrod asked the guard how long he had been out. The guard didn’t say a word. Elfrod sat in silence for what felt like weeks with scarce rations. Eventually, the carriage came to a sudden halt. The door swung open and two guards entered. They each grabbed one of Elfrod’s arms and escorted him out of the carriage. When Elfrod got his bearings, he looked around and found himself to be in a rather large city. “Welcome to the Capital of Palisor, your new permeant home.” one the guards said with a devilish grin on his face. The guards escorted Elfrod through the city and came to a large palace. They entered the palace and went through a series of hallways until they a large room with a throne in the middle. Seated in the throne was a woman in silk robes and a very disgruntled look on her face. It didn’t take Elfrod to figure out this was the woman that slapped him. It didn’t take much longer for Elfrod to figure out that this woman sitting upon a throne was the empress of Palisor. She went on to explain all the infractions that Elfrod committed and sentenced him to be a slave of the empress for the rest of his life.